Hawaii breaks from storms to vote
Just two precincts stay closed for tight Democratic races for governor and Senate.
With cleanup underway from Tropical Storm Iselle and an incoming hurricane veering north, Hawaii’s focus on Saturday shifted to a pair of competitive primary contests that could oust from office two of the state’s top Democrats.
Gov. Neil Abercrombie, seeking a second term, trailed far behind state Sen. David Ige in early returns. U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz was narrowly behind Rep. Colleen Hanabusa in another race that represented a rare turn in 2014: Democratic fratricide.
The returns represented about two-thirds of absentee ballots cast in the stormtossed election.
The election was bracketed by two storms: Iselle, which made landfall Friday, and Hurricane Julio, which was expected to pass north of the islands on Sunday. As Iselle hit, all four candidates suspended their campaigns and urged voters to take precautions and to remain safe.
“The governor’s focus has been on these storms,” Shane Peters, a spokesman for Abercormbie’s campaign, said Saturday. “Gov. Abercrombie is governor first, because that’s his job. For us, the election has been secondary.”
Rescuers in Kauai on Saturday recovered a body believed to be that of a female hiker who was reportedly swept away while attempting to cross a stream Friday afternoon. Her identity has not been released.
With Iselle causing little property damage, the campaigns charged forward on Saturday with last-minute efforts to boost turnout from their partisans.
Absentee voting, encouraged as the storms neared, was up nearly 12% in Hawaii, with nearly 160,000 ballots cast early. About 697,000 Hawaiians are registered to vote in the primary — a slight uptick of about 13,000 voters compared with 2012, said Rex Quidilla, a spokesman for the state’s elections office.
Early voting began in Hawaii last month, and Quidilla said “no significant” issues were being reported as a result of Iselle. Two precincts in the Puna district of the Big Island were closed Saturday due to the storm; about 8,000 voters in the area will be able to cast absentee ballots later.
“It is the first time I have not voted in 45 years,” Mary Roblee lamented in an interview.
The two closed stations are in precincts where “there are miles of roads that are obstructed” and power outages, Atty. Gen. David Louie told reporters Friday.
“Voters are in lines and casting ballots, with exception of two precincts,” Quidilla said.
The races for governor and U.S. Senate were uniquely entwined this year: It was Abercrombie who ap- pointed Schatz — then his lieutenant governor — to the seat held for nearly five decades by the widely beloved Daniel K. Inouye, who died in December 2012.
Despite Inouye’s deathbed wish — that Abercrombie appoint Hanabusa, Inouye’s protege, to the Senate seat — the governor picked Schatz, in part for his relative youth. (He is 41; Hanabusa is 63.)
In an April interview with The Times, Abercrombie expressed doubts about Inouye’s request — a move that caused a firestorm among Hanabusa supporters.
The appointment and the primary battles also rested on Hawaii’s complicated ethnic politics. Abercrombie and Schatz represent Hawaii’s white electorate, and have been endorsed by the state’s native son, President Obama.
Hanabusa and Ige, both Asian Americans like Inouye, are looking to capture support from those voters, the largest segment of the state’s population, according to U.S. Census figures.
Before winning his first term in 2010, Abercrombie served in the state House and then in Congress, representing the city and county of Honolulu. Some polls in the Aloha State show Abercrombie down by double digits.
“At the end of the day, we’re confident. We’re in a good position to win this race,” Abercrombie’s spokesman Peters said Saturday. “And that’s the feeling from the governor, down to volunteers, who will be getting out the vote up until polls close. We’re not going to speculate on who might turn out and who might not.”
Abercrombie has touted the state’s low unemployment numbers and his role three years ago in ending “furlough Fridays” for state employees.
Ige has countered that his own chairmanship of the state’s budgeting committee has given him an acute understanding of Hawaii’s fiscal needs.
Steve Bader, a spokes- man for Ige’s campaign, said the challenger’s team felt comfortable heading into the vote.
“What we’re hearing is very positive — polling has been positive — but what we’re hearing and seeing on the ground is real support,” Bader said.
Polling in the Senate race has been mixed. A recent survey from Civil Beat, a leftleaning local public affairs reporting site, had Schatz leading Hanabusa by about 8 percentage points, while a poll from the Honolulu StarAdvertiser had Hanabusa leading by the same percentage.
Since Hawaii is a bastion for Democrats, the primary winners are expected to sail to victory in November.
Neal Milner, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Hawaii, said Saturday that he expected it would take a while for the results to be known.
“There won’t be anyone calling any of these races immediately,” Milner said.
Two years ago the state had the lowest turnout rate in the country, with fewer than half of its registered voters casting ballots in the presidential election, according to a study from the nonpartisan NonProfit Vote.
Milner says he doesn’t expect the rate to increase.
“The only thing to raise turnout is these contested elections,” Milner said. “Will we see a huge increase? That’s unlikely.”
Barbara Anderson, of Hilo, went out to vote after the storm.
Anderson said that she and her husband saw little damage, but that their polling station was unusually empty.
“We didn’t have to wait at all,” Anderson said. “And usually you do have to wait a little bit. We just walked in and there were lots of booths open.”